Dreamhost Review

Good/ Dreamhost has extremely basic pricing with no option to choose various plans, making it easy to buy and get started with included server uptime that ranks among the best.

Bad/ Pricing is more expensive than some competitors, and lack of cPanel could be a deal breaker.

Verdict/Dreamhost offers attractive uptime and reliability as well as excellent customer support policies. The downside is less competitive pricing and lack of cPanel. Read our full scoop in this Dreamhost review.

Dreamhost Review

Intro

Dreamhost is based in Los Angeles, and they launched in 1997. With their long track record, Dreamhost has continued to improve and integrate new features into their company.

Pricing

Unlike some other web host competitors that we’ve reviewed, Dreamhost doesn’t have a pricing plan that includes higher tiers. Instead, it’s just one package with varying lengths of time you can choose. However, there are some perks like a free domain name, free privacy protection, and free SSL/TLS certificates. Other competitors, like Bluehost, often charge for privacy protection.

These prices are OK–but more expensive than others. We’ve seen cheaper here.

Managed WordPress Hosting

If you need Managed WordPress Hosting from Dreamhost, you can get it for $19.95 a month with 30GB SSD storage. The WordPress Hosting comes with unlimited email accounts and a free dedicated IP address.

VPS Hosting

VPS hosting starts at $15 a month, and it comes with 1 GB of RAM and 30GB SSD storage. You can also upgrade to 8GB RAM and 240GB SSD. Every VPS plan automatically comes with unlimited bandwidth and unlimited domain names.

Uptime and Reliability

Dreamhost has the best-ranked uptime and reliability! We noted them here alongside A2 Hosting as having the highest uptime percentage. We’ve tested this from our own sites and through tracking tools that measure website uptime. Dreamhost has a 99.98% uptime, and they are so confident in their uptime that they will provide an extra day of service for every hour of downtime that you experience. 99.98% uptime means your website will only be down a few hours a year!

Features

Dreamhost comes with some cool features that make them attractive as a service.

#1 Speed

Dreamhost has decent speeds. While not as fast as A2 Hosting‘s average of 200 MS latency, Dreamhost has rates that provide for proper page load times. Over the course of our tests, we’ve received an average of around 550-570ms.

#2 Support

While good support sometimes can’t feel like a necessity, you’ll notice bad support much quicker which can turn your web host experience sour. Fortunately, we didn’t see any significant wait times or slow queues with Dreamhost. Usually, we had short wait times, and we loved the experience we had each time we tested out their reps.

Dreamhost gives it all when it comes to their support–promising to give one day of service for every hour of downtime. They also have a HUGE refund guarantee at 97 days!!!

#3 Unlimited Bandwidth

One last good thing about Dreamhost is that they offer unlimited bandwidth, whereas some other web host providers put caps on your bandwidth or even charge more.

Cons

#1 More expensive

Since Dreamhost doesn’t have various pricing models for you to upgrade to (low-tier,mid-tier, etc.), their flat pricing rate is a tad bit more expensive than some cheaper competitors like A2 Hosting and Bluehost. The flipside is that there are fewer decisions (and fewer ways to mess up potentially) to make at checkout for entry level users.

#2 No cPanel

Instead of using cPanel, Dreamhost has their control panel where you can take care of administrative stuff and installs. If you love cPanel, this is a bad thing–but if you’re sick of it, hate it, or want something different, Dreamhost’s control panel might offer a better alternative.

Dreamhost’s control panel does contain all of the standard stuff like billing, Django, ImageMagick as well as account details for Mysql and email accounts.

#3 Setup might take awhile

With Dreamhost, you have to wait for your account to be processed. Unlike some web hosts who make your process more instantaneous, your website could be delayed for a few hours if you do decide to signup with Dreamhost.

Summary

Dreamhost might not have the fastest page load times, but its uptime is among the best–as well as their customer support experience.

However, they are a bit expensive since you can’t pick and choose what package you want (however, again, this does mean you get some cool perks like a free domain name and free privacy protection). Overall, Dreamhost is a very solid pick if they check every box for you.

Thanks for reading our Dreamhost review! Check out some other reviews here!

Tom Spark is a chair researcher, VPN expert, and a geek product extraordinaire. When he’s not spell checking his articles with Grammarly, he’s playing video games, watching too much Netflix, and deciding if he likes his current chair or not.